In the developing connected and secure home, the services layer can garner value from the multitude of information coming from the multitude of sensors pre-existing in homes, buildings, and other locations. For example, at present, many homes include multiple different sensors that transmit information about one or more components/systems within the homes, such as information indicating whether doors/windows are open or closed, motion sensor information, alarm status information, environmental information, and other information that sensors are capable of detecting. A large portion of installed sensors are wireless—meaning that they transmit at least some information wirelessly using one or more wireless protocols. The information from these sensors can have a variety of uses, such as being used to chart, classify and model consumer habits, initiate actions outside the home, automate devices and functions inside the home, and provide core security, life safety and home infrastructure monitoring and response.
To obtain and use information from wireless sensors, a wireless system can recognize, enroll, and configure wireless sensors into its system. For example, a wireless system can be configured to connect to particular types of sensors provided by particular manufacturers. Enrolling such sensors with this wireless system can include, for example, a user/installer manually connecting/identifying each sensor with the wireless system. Such a conventional wireless system may not be configured or readily capable of enrolling wireless sensors outside of those that the wireless system is preconfigured to use.
Enrolling sensors with a third-party wireless system (system not preconfigured to use or connect with particular sensors) can be a non-trivial operation. For instance, the wireless air can be considered one large, common channel over which all sensors are talking. Generally, an installer can enroll a sensor with a wireless system by causing a unique, uncommon transmission to be sent by the sensor, in order to ensure the correct sensor among many is being enrolled. Or, in another example, a unique identifier can be known for a sensor and entered into the wireless system. In a further example, installing old sensors with a wireless system (takeover installations of old sensors) can include the installer identifying the make, model and function of each old sensor, which can be time-consuming and can require a fair amount of installer expertise.